CD&V chairman Mahdi wants to organize return hubs in the Benelux context News

CD&V chairman Sammy Mahdi wants to organize return hubs for migrants outside the EU in a Benelux context. He said this on Thursday in the VRT program Villa Politica.

Negotiators from the Member States and the European Parliament agreed on a new EU return regulation on Monday. This offers Member States that so wish a legal framework to enter into discussions with third countries about the establishment of centers for people without the right of residence in the EU. These hubs can function as a final destination or as transit centers on the way to the country of origin or another country. Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, Greece and Austria have already expressed interest and want to take concrete steps together.

Majority parties Les Engagés and Vooruit are concerned about the return regulation, which will force our country to abstain from the vote in the Council. But for CD&V chairman Mahdi, that concern is “actually wrong”. Because voluntary and forced return to the country of origin often fails, eighty percent of the people who actually have to leave remain stuck in Belgium, he notes. The return regulation should enable Belgium to get out of this “dire situation”. “Certainly if many of our neighboring countries do take action on this, it threatens to have an impact on our own migration policy if we ourselves lag behind,” says Mahdi.

“We would like us to look at Benelux level with which third countries we can work together. Countries where people can go safely, where it is well organised, but where we can also arrange the final part of the migration policy. Because as long as that is not arranged, you will have parties such as Vlaams Belang that continues to throw all migration into the same bucket and tries to problematize everything. But they do not know how to tackle the problem at its root,” says Mahdi.